Wild Hart Coaching

03/29/2026

Honored to be included among Minneapolis' top 10 Life Coaches!

https://www.digitalreference.co/insights/human-resource-professionals/best-life-coaches-in-minneapolis

03/29/2026

Celebrating almost 20 years of helping others connect to themselves, heal, grow and transform -- body and soul.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Gaines. Susan, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? For nearly two decades, my work has been rooted in one essential question: What happens when we truly listen to ourselves? My first answers cam...

09/14/2025

Your burnout starter plan 💛 -

It’s a simple roadmap to help you take your first steps toward restoring energy, clarity, and peace. No strings attached.

08/24/2025

✨ The Way Home ✨

Way: a path, road, or journey.
Home: a dwelling place, a place of belonging, the origin of self.

For much of my life, I was walking, but not rooted. I chased achievements, stacked credentials, and clung to the belief that if I just did enough, then I’d finally feel worthy. But no matter how much I accomplished, I still felt adrift.

Looking back, I see those years as part of my own Hero’s Journey. At the time, it felt like survival — but when I map my story onto Joseph Campbell’s 12 stages, it all begins to make sense.

For me:
🌍 The Ordinary World was a life defined by performance.
✨ The Call to Adventure came as a whisper: What if there’s more than this?
🙅‍♀️ I refused it for years — until heartbreak left me no choice but to listen.
🔥 My ordeals — divorce, betrayal, loneliness — became the very doorway to belonging.

What I thought would break me became the key. Writing Prioritize Your Self-Care turned out to be not just a memoir, but a map — my Hero’s Journey, and an invitation for others to begin theirs.

Most recently, completing a 10-month CTI Global Leadership Program birthed my new offering: The Way Home Mini-Series. This workshop grew from a deep recognition that our struggles aren’t detours — they are the path. And the destination isn’t an external prize. It’s home. Belonging to ourselves.

That’s the elixir I bring back. And it’s what I want to share with you.

✨ Official registration is closed, but there are still a couple of spots open. If you feel the call, consider this your invitation.

➡️ The Way Home Mini-Series: www.wildhartcoaching.com

Find your way home.

08/10/2025

✨ What if the story you’ve been telling… is hiding your power?

We all have a story we tell about who we are and what’s possible.
But what if… that story isn’t the whole truth?

Imagine what might happen if you reclaimed the pen. 🖋️

07/27/2025

📚 Exciting news: another local bookstore is now carrying my book!

You can now find Prioritize Your Self-Care: Reclaiming Your Path to an Extraordinary Life at Comma, a bookshop—a beautifully curated independent bookstore in the heart of the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Comma is more than just a place to buy books—it’s a space built on care, conversation, and community. It’s the perfect fit for a book that invites readers to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and take their well-being seriously.

As one reader shared:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “It reminded me that self-care doesn’t have to be complicated, just intentional.”

While you’re there, stop in and say hello to Pearl or Victoria, Comma’s intentional and welcoming owner. She's built something truly special.

📍 Comma, a bookshop
4250 Upton Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55410
📞 (612) 354-7094
🛒 https://www.commamn.com

Thank you for supporting independent bookstores, local authors, and spaces that help stories (and people) thrive. 💛

Tag a friend who loves local bookstores! 📚✨

07/21/2025

🌲🦌 A Real Encounter. A Vision Realized. 🦌🌲

This reel captures a moment from the solo portion of my high school’s 24-day Athenian Wilderness Experience — modeled after Outward Bound and set deep in the Sierra Nevada.

For 3 days, I was completely alone. No food. No shelter. No contact. No distractions — not even cell phones back then. It was designed as a modern-day vision quest — a rite of passage into something deeper.

This encounter wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a hallucination. It was real. A wild deer appeared and stood with me in stillness, in silence. We saw each other. Fully. And in that moment, something ancient and unshakable awakened in me.

This was more than survival. This was transformation.

07/20/2025

📚 Now available at Big Hill Books: Prioritize Your Self-Care by Susan Hart Gaines

Even the cat gets it.
Claim your space. Rest without guilt. Set boundaries like your peace depends on it—because it does.

My book is a grounded, compassionate guide for anyone ready to stop running on empty. It’s not just about bubble baths and candles (though those help)—it’s about reclaiming your time, your energy, and your own well-being.

If you’ve been putting yourself last, it’s time to change the story. One where you come first.

🛋️ Available now at Big Hill Books in Minneapolis.
And if you're ready to start putting self-care back where it belongs—at the center of your life—I’m opening a few 1:1 coaching spots this month to support you.

✨ Message me to learn more or schedule a session. You don’t have to do it alone.

07/14/2025

📚 Want to support a local bookstore?

Skip Amazon and grab your copy of Prioritize Your Self-Care: Reclaiming Your Path to an Extraordinary Life at Big Hill Books in the heart of Bryn Mawr, Minneapolis!

This isn’t just another self-help book—it’s a thoughtful, encouraging companion. One reader put it best:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“It reminded me that self-care doesn’t have to be complicated, just intentional.”

Big Hill Books is a gem of a neighborhood bookstore—warm, welcoming, and dedicated to stories that matter. By buying local, you’re supporting a local writer (me!) and helping an independent shop thrive.

📍 Big Hill Books
📌 405 Penn Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55405
🛒 In person or online: https://www.bighillbooks.com

Thank you for showing up for small businesses and big-hearted stories. 💛

Thank you, Big Hill Books!

07/13/2025

I'm a self-care nut. It's so much more than bubble baths and a list of how to relax. It's radical. It's real.

07/09/2025

I kept hearing the same quiet question:
“What if I can’t be there in person… but I still want to do this work?”

So I created The Way Home: Mini-Series — a 3-month live, online workshop where we explore the stories that have shaped you.

Each week, we unpack one chapter of your life through the Hero’s Journey, Jungian archetypes, and the lens of Prioritize Your Self-Care — not to fix your past, but to reclaim it.

This experience is designed for people who are in a season of transition… or simply ready to live more truthfully.

It can stand alone — or lead into the year-long, in-person experience in Minnesota.

✨ We begin in September.
Spots are limited so we can go deep.

🎟️ Save your spot or learn more here: https://www.wildhartcoaching.com/the-way-home-mini-series

06/28/2025

This.

What if we could recognize our faults and look to see what is beyond them?

What if we could see, with great tenderness, the painful unmet needs that have shaped our behaviors?

For many of us, this process is the work of a lifetime, one that requires the active support of loved ones, therapists, spiritual teachers, or healers.

Yet it begins the moment that we are willing to look at ourselves through the eyes of compassion.